tokyo: second stage
ok i didnt quite fit all of tokyo into one post as id planned, but hopefully i will now cos i have lots of free time (im at work =p)

:: day 4
we kinda had a bit of a sleep in, we needed to catch up on sleep.. well i did anyways =p our first stop was the world famous Electric City in Akihibara. i was quite intent on purchasing a digital camera (mostly to record this trip). i ended up getting what i considered a good deal on a Sony Cybershot DSCFX77. i got it for about AU$50 of the price on the tag.. i probly couldve done better, but "um.. how much is that?" is about the limit of my japanese bargaining skills =p either way it was still almost AU$400 cheaper than buying the same camera in Sydney. i also managed to get a 256Mb memory stick for about AU$50 less than tenny bought one in Sydney for just a week earlier.

next we headed to Meijiro to scope out a streetball court that Hunt spotted as our train sped past on the previous day. the court was a street court in every sense.. it was basically jsut rings and backboards .. the ground had no line markings.. mostly cos it was jsut uneven dirt ground. quite hard to get any grip. after a lil bit of confusion we managed to kinda get a game with some locals.. all they could really say was "2 on 2?" and "up to 7".. but thats enough =) it was ok ball.. the ground was a bit frustrating. but the guys there were pretty cool. After the game we were talking to them kinda.. it was all pretty funny.. talking about basketball mostly in their broken english and my very broken japanese =p they could read and write jap a lot better than they could speak it. so they ended up writing notes to us cos it was just easier =p (ill add the scan of the note here tonite). they wanted to be friends.. so we traded emails =) hunt gave one of the guys his bandanna too, hunt has photos of the guys too.. but he is lazy and hasnt posted them up online yet...

next was to somewhere in between Kanda and Jimbocho.. to the snowboard district of tokyo. there were some uber cheap snowboards like 1/4 of Sydney prices.. and some stupidly cheap bindings (like AU$25) but in the end all i walked away with was a pair of snowboard pants (which i did need). i also tried on every beanie in every store pretty much =p we didnt realyl know where we were.. but some photographer passing by said he'd show us the way back to akihibara .. so we walked with him down there.. also hunt dropped his wallet on the street.. and some stranger chased us down and returned it. hehe u can tell when ur not in sydney .. tokyo had such nice ppl =)

we headed back home to Ueno to greet mr chito and went to check in and attempt to get a good sleep for the next morning. we went to the shared bath downstairs.. it was my first jap baths.. basically theres a lil seat with a hose-like shower where u wash urself down before getting into this giant hot tub filled with naked middle aged japanese business men =p i went to the sauna for a bit.. man its hot in there ... some other odd things were one-use toothbrushes. they had like built in toothpaste, so u get one brush and then u throw it out. also a communal set of nail clippers.. a bit ewww.. but my nails were getting annoying long by then =p on the way back up, i lost my locker key!! eep! frantically looked everywhere for it.. the ppl at the place were really nice about it.. cos it costs 5000 yen to replace.. luckily some guy found it so i didnt have to pay.. phew =)

:: day 5
chito tried to get breakfast from a ramen vending machine to no avail.. it was broken or soemthing and the noodles came out frozen, twas pretty funny.. but me and hunt ate breakfast at the local bakery =p we headed back to shinjuku.. cos apparently theres stuff there.. but we didnt find anything.. so we left =p took a nice walk down to Harajuku to see punks but went thru the park to see a nearby temple. it was kinda cool n stuff.. lotsa n00b tourists with cameras n stuff.. but i guess we were like one of them =p

finally we got to Harajuku and the place was crawling with assorted punks .. some cool.. some cute.. and some just plain bizare. it was all as much as i couldve asked for.. although some older kids came along later.. and we missed out on taking their photos.. but they were pretty extravagant. the funniest thing was when some korean girls came up and asked if they could take their photo with chito =p it was was hilarious., apparenlty thats a pick up line in korea....

we went back to the snowboard district.. where hunt wanted to buy this snowboard for 39800 yen.. which is about Au$480.. cos he thought it was a bargain.. but it turned out that 39800 wasnt the board price.. it was the price for a set of board, boots, bindings and a bad =p hehe yay for not being able to read jap signs. we headed back to akihibara too cos i wanted to go to Animate to find naruto headbands.. but alas the store was closed... grr.. worst vacation ever!

last stop was a local internet cafe. it was actually an internet/manga/console gaming cafe. u pay by the hour and u can read manga.. or surf the net.. or play ps2, or play gamecube.. or watch dvds.. hehe ahh thats service. u also get a private room with a puter.. and there was a selection of free unlimited drinks too, like coffee or coke or calpis or OJ.. or green tea or corn soup =p

....
ok thats it for tokyo.. ill write about Osaka in another post.. maybe today.. maybe tommolo =p